First Impressions / Tales of the Abyss

Summary:

After escaping from Baticul, Luke and company are reunited with Jade’s group and the Albiore. Natalia is still depressed over what happened, so Guy and the others make her understand that the people support her and that her father is just confused. For their next move, the group heads back to Belkend to figure out how to prevent land that falls to Qliphoth from sinking. There, they find out that the source of the Qliphoth’s liquefaction problem is the vibrating of the core of the planet caused by Planet Storm, the artificial planetary fuel supply mechanism. They can’t simply stop the Planet Storm, but they do discover a way to stop just the vibrations with a certain fon machine, so they pay a visit to a pair of researchers that Guy knows and is able to convince to help them. To get started, these researchers give them a device to measure the vibration frequency, and the plan is to put this device through a passage ring to a Sephiroth Tree. They need the location of a Sephiroth though, so they decide to head back to Daath and the cathedral there.

Before leaving Belkend, Guy is passed a message and meets with Van secretly. It turns out that Guy used to be Van’s master, but is opposed to Hod being restored now as a replica and doesn’t want to join Van. Since the two don’t agree, Guy refuses to meet with Van again, and the two part ways, not knowing that Jade was watching from the shadows. Guy then rejoins the group and they make their way to Daath. While heading towards the cathedral, they run into Anise’s mother and then get attacked by Arietta and her ligers. One of the liger’s lightning attack almost hits Ion helping an innocent child, but Anise’s mother protects the two with her own body. Ion’s subsequently stern attitude towards Arietta causes her to run away with her ligers, and Anise’s mother turns out to be okay. Seeing Anise’s mother get hit though causes Guy to remember his past, and once the group reaches the cathedral, he reveals how his sister and servants protected him and died on top of him. That led to his fear of touching women.

Jade takes this chance to question Guy about his meeting with Van, so Guy admits that Van used to be his guardian. Guy used to want revenge for what happened, but he claims that he’s different now, and Luke is the first one to voice his trust in him. Further into the cathedral, Ion examines the Closed Score to find the location of a Sephiroth. In doing so, the group finds some discrepancies between what the Score says and what actually happened, and they suspect that Luke’s existence as a replica messed things up. As for their immediate goal of finding a Sephiroth, Ion points them to Tataroo Valley. Shortly after they get there, Anise notices a butterfly worth a lot of money and chases after it, but a minor earthquake causes her to lose her footing off the side of a cliff. Guy is luckily there to catch her and pull her back up to safety, and afterward, they realize that Guy has overcome his fear. The group then proceeds to the passage ring and find it inactive, meaning that they can’t get their measurements. However, Tear suddenly experiences something that leads to the passage ring reactivating, so they succeed after all. Noticing Tear not looking well, Luke checks up on her, but she doesn’t tell him what’s wrong.

Preview:

How is it that the group can just waltz back into Daath and the cathedral? Especially after the latest escape from Baticul and given how Mohs is so intent on capturing or killing them, you’d think that the entire place would be on the lookout for them. I thought that they’d at least have shown the group fighting or sneaking their way in. I guess this is that problem again of having to jump around to too many different places to satisfy the original RPG story, and the Sunrise staff just doesn’t have the time to create transitions to all those locations, leaving things like this up to our imagination.

Complaints aside, I was surprised to learn about Guy and Van’s connection, but that didn’t turn out to be a major source of contention since Luke trusts Guy so much. A good portion of the episode ended up being about Guy, but things appear to have wrapped up pretty quickly, and now that he’s even gotten over his fear of women, there doesn’t look to be much left about him to develop. Given how he comforted Natalia though, maybe there’ll be something between those two…

There is no episode of Tales of the Abyss next week, and it’s currently unclear which channel episode 15 will air first on. Normally all the channels take a break together, but TOKYO MX was originally a couple episodes behind in airing the show compared to MBS, and without a break, it might end up being ahead. TOKYO MX’s schedules haven’t updated yet, but if this ends up being the case, then the earliest airdate would become Fridays, and episode 15 will be on Friday, January 9th, 2009. If TOKYO MX does take a break though, then MBS retains the earliest airdate distinction and episode 15 will be on Saturday, January 10th, 2009.

34 Comments

  3. game was awesome!
    show is no go.

    even i, who played the game thrice, can’t seem to like the jumpsfrom one location to the other – there was not a single scene, since the first episode where i was astonished!

    btw.guy’s fear isn’t gone yet, they didn’t show what happened after he rescued the brat.
    i tell you, he ran away again. ^^

    tommykn
    Reply

  5. I’ve played the game & even I was surprised at how much they jumped locations & I cant even remember what they skipped anymore…
    Actually, I was only really bothered by the jumps in this episode…

    moshimoshi
    Reply

  8. it wasn’t too bad for those of you complaining. it is pretty hard to turn a game into a series like this after all.

    the animation is still well done, and they are progressing with the storyline pretty well… even if they are missing a few areas >.<

    Amiena
    Reply

  10. Not great in terms of how they’ve told the story, but I don’t dislike the show. It probably helps that I haven’t played the game yet.

    Guy seems to just be nice to everybody. He falls under that “heros best friend who is actually much cooler than the hero” video game steriotype IMO -__-

    rufe
    Reply

  11. I am also bothered by the jumps but it doesn’t take away from the anime as a whole. The storytelling is strong and the pacing is bit fast but not too much. I think it’s pretty much on the right track if it wishes to wrap everything up in 24 episodes. A game like ToA can be wrapped up in 50 episodes if possible but of course no one wants that.

    Minnie
    Reply

  12. “How is it that the group can just waltz back into Daath and the cathedral? Especially after the latest escape from Baticul and given how Mohs is so intent on capturing or killing them, you’d think that the entire place would be on the lookout for them. I thought that they’d at least have shown the group fighting or sneaking their way in.”

    Well, that makes sense as the Albiore is probably the fastest way to travel in the world, so even with the detour to Belkend, they’d easily reach Daath before any orders from Mohs.

    Something that did bother me though was the whole ordeal about reading the Closed Score to find the location of a Sephiroth. Ion reads the Score, but the information doesn’t concern the Sephiroth at all. However, after that he quickly points the group to Tataroo Valley. It makes sense for him to know of the location since that’S the door he was forced to open back in episode 3, but why didn’t he just say so BEFORE they went to Daath?

    Serpit
    Reply

  15. The jumps only bother me when I read about them on blogs and then look back, honestly…I have played many Tales games (but not this one), and I know how much story and development they cram into them. Like someone else said, they could cover it all including travel, but that would make for a slowly paced 50+ episode series, which would cost more than it would make…as it is I enjoy it a lot, I feel like I am getting the best parts of the story and characters, which I would rather have instead of good transitions, honestly. (They could add them, but would probably have to take out arcs like the Guy phobia arc, because a 10 second transition two-three times a week would add up to half an episode by the end of the season and that is being conservative.)

    Basically, I totally understand the frustration with the slicing and dicing of the story from the game, but I personally think they are doing the best that could reasonably be expected from them; and most importantly, I look forward to it every week, so something must be being done right. =)

    Alex
    Reply

  16. “Like someone else said, they could cover it all including travel, but that would make for a slowly paced 50+ episode series, which would cost more than it would make…as it is I enjoy it a lot, I feel like I am getting the best parts of the story and characters, which I would rather have instead of good transitions, honestly.”

    Dito. I myself never played the game, so it’s quite ok for me to see “just” the more important parts of the story. As Alex said, an 50 episode anime would be too long. Now’s the question if they shouldn’t do 2 episodes more to put in some travel time. But honestly, it’s still ok like it is now. I understand the frustration of those who played the game, but if you think of any other ways to present the story better.. it’s just not so easy.

    But coming back to the story, I don’t really think Guy will end up with Natalia – we are half through the series and there wasn’t really any development between those two. I rather read that scene as proof, how Guy likes Natalia and that she’s a good friend to him.

    mutio
    Reply

  19. I played this game 2 rounds already and gonna complete the 3rd round soon, and I still like this anime. People may not think the same, do they? The location jumping may be annoying for some but not for me! Walking on the world map and do the random battle is quite annoying if it took place in the anime too mush.

    I think the one that has very annoying & confusing story and travel is “Shining tear & wind” anime not this one.

    Luminos
    Reply

  21. While Tales of the Abyss isn’t my favorite game in the Tales series by any standard. I still like this adaption a lot. Nearly every second is used to address some point presented in the game, and little time is wasted dawdling what precious time they have.

    I can also see why Sunrise is neglecting the transitions. The sheer amount of plot alone is daunting enough to compress into just 26 episodes. Plus, I’d rather not be reminded of the traveling…especially to Daath…
    (game rule #1: To advance the plot, go to Daath. If that should fail, head to Belkend)

    Still, they really did speed through…I don’t remember the 2nd part of Guy’s past being presented so soon. Of course, that may be just because they cut out the long sidequest that was acquiring the Albiore (and then later reacquiring the fonstone).

    miken-chan
    Reply

  22. the only episode where the transitions were really noticeable to me was this one, mainly because of the number of places they went to in this episode, but i still dont care. anyone who has any idea whatsoever about RPGs in general or have played them knows what happens in the time it takes to get from one place to another. your characters literally become 100 foot giants that stomp around the world, shrink when they come into contact with random sometimes (actually most of the time) invisible enemies so they can beat them up, gain exp, and repeat. actually in this case, they wouldnt have even been walking, they got a ship. if you think about it, the transitions would actually feel more natural by just showing them getting either on or off the airship, (as opposed to a random clip of them walking with the ship in the background) but how many times would we have to see that over and over and over again. the most jarring part actually was when those inventors build that never before mentioned, totally brand new, completely unique, untested, mysterious little device in about 2 seconds. but then again, these scenes in any RPG game usually mean you tell them you need something built, they say they need time, you rest at an inn, come back the next morning and it is ready. no one needs to actually see these scenes animated so no one should really be complaining, especially at this point in the series.

    GGear0323
    Reply

  26. There’s not really anything between Guy and Natalia (well, if you want to believe there is, feel free to do it ^^), he’s just like that with any female. It’s more obvious in the game though.

    mee
    Reply

  27. I’ll admit that I don’t like some of the things they’ve skipped – mostly around episode 13 or so, but honestly I still like the anime. Some things HAVE to be skipped, and so long as they visit all the Sephiroth and show Ginji – two things that have been skipped so far, if you include Shurry Hill’s Sephiroth – I’ll be a happy camper. Really, in my mind those are the only two important things not be shown so far. Until episode 13 or so, they were covering nearly everything important or working it in nicely.

    Tales of the Abyss is my favorite video game, and I’m still giving the anime a chance. We all knew they wouldn’t be able to cover everything, and worrying about seeing the traveling should NOT be the concern. If that’s what’s getting everyone upset, then, well…the anime’s doing a great job. Such a trivial thing is all we have to complain about, hm?

    Ari
    Reply

  28. Ive played the game…it was long and painful, but the plot is amazing!
    About the jumping thing, im actually glad they didnt put it, since what matters is the main story rather than looking at them walk, but i do find it annoying for those who didnt play the game to be confused or finding it too awkward (but good lord, at least they didnt remind me the pain of travelling to one city to another before Albion came, and fighting those monsters..the system always takes a long time to load grrr)

    But its still the best RPG game animated till now, the’ve really pushed it far!
    Tales of Symphonia was the best game for me, but the animation really sucked…stupid OVA.

    Serena
    Reply

  31. Show is awesome, and I guess it’s mostly because I haven’t played the game. Yes, the jumps were very noticable this episode, but I don’t take that as really a bad point, as they get to cover more of the story.

    Also, it seems you hav bot-infistation by the name of lohking omni.

    illusion
    Reply

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